Friend Zoned
by Carrie L
Summary: <html><head></head>The whole C/7 train wreck? You just know whose fault that had to be. J/C references and angst, in the context of an attempt to be humorous. Season 7, canon-friendly. Extended ending just added, in which Paris faces his comeuppance. Ultimately completely J/C, as you knew it would be.</html>
1. Chapter 1

**Friend Zoned**

_The whole C/7 train wreck? You just _know_ whose fault that had to be._

Chakotay racked his pool cue and turned from the table.

"I'd better call it a night," he told Tom Paris. "I'm way off my game tonight."

Tom set his own cue on the felt and took a tentative step forward.

"I know what's bothering you," he said. "I don't mind listening if you want to talk."

Chakotay shrugged. "What is there to talk about? One day I think she cares, the next she's moving in with some alien she's known a week."

"Under mind control!" Tom objected. "B'Elanna and I didn't even know each other down there."

"Sure, under mind control," Chakotay agreed with a dismissive wave. "Fine. It doesn't matter."

Tom turned quickly toward Sandrine, who was wiping down the bar and eyeing her last two customers with badly hidden impatience.

"Two glasses and a bottle of your oldest synthehol," he said to her. "We'll close up when we're done."

After a quick negotiation, Tom had his bottle and Sandrine had disappeared to whatever constituted her holographic personal life. He gestured to the nearest bar stools. "Have a seat."

Chakotay eyed the door, sighed, and accepted the invitation with a nod. "I appreciate this, Paris, but it's not going to" – he began as he pulled out a stool, but Tom interrupted.

"I can't let you go on like this, pal. You've been friend zoned. All the classic signs are there." Tom sat and poured two shots with businesslike efficiency. "I've been wanting to tell you for months – heck, years – but I figured it was none of my business. Then I felt bad because B'Elanna and I are so happy. I felt mean pointing it out."

Chakotay's eyebrows lifted in skepticism as he accepted the glass. "But not anymore?"

Tom shook his head. "Not after what just happened planet-side. You're in pain, my friend, and rightly so. I would've been devastated if I'd been part of the rescue team and I'd gone down there to find B'Elanna snuggled up with some other guy."

Chakotay downed his shot. "Is some part of this supposed to make me feel better?" he asked as he wiped his mouth and slammed down the glass.

Tom drank and poured again for both of them. "Not necessarily better, not right away, but you need to take some action. You can't let things go on the way they are."

Chakotay's face twisted in frustration. "I've tried a thousand times, Tom. She always finds a way to change the subject, create a distraction. There's nothing I can do."

"Exactly. She's turned you into her brother, and you've let her. The only time she pays any attention to you is when some other woman wanders across your path."

Chakotay drank, grabbed the bottle, and poured the refills himself this time. "You're crazy."

Tom stretched an arm across the bar and faced Chakotay. "I'm not! Listen and see if this doesn't sound familiar. She's got you in a place where you exist solely to back up her command decisions and make her feel like she's the greatest thing in high-heeled captain boots. Remember the last time we made first contact on a non-mind controlling M-class planet, and she asked you to help her pick out things for the baby shower at the central market?'

"We had a nice time that day!" Chakotay objected. He leaned onto both arms. "That was one of the last times I really felt close to her."

"Nope." Tom made a slicing gesture. "Friend zone. Women do not take men shopping when they're panting after you. It's a buddy job, not a man job."

Chakotay coughed into his drink. "A _man _job? Has your brain returned to the twentieth century again, Paris?"

"Did you carry the packages for her?" Tom asked.

Chakotay's shoulders stiffened. "Of course."

Tom sighed. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you used to have dinner in your quarters or hers all the time, right?"

"Right."

"And are you still doing that?"

"Yes. Well. We've both been busy. More often it's the mess hall, and not usually dinner, but that doesn't mean" – Chakotay defended.

"Right." Tom cut him off. "She only wants to see you in public. You're her escort to every crew party, but there's never a party in her quarters, she never has time for that, you get what I'm saying?"

Chakotay pushed away his glass. "This is juvenile, Paris." He didn't look up.

Tom leaned closer, into Chakotay's personal space. "Or how about this. When was the last time she paid you a really sincere compliment?"

Chakotay shifted away on his stool. "She told me – or actually, Seven told me the captain told her that she trusts me more than anyone on board, just a few weeks ago."

Tom sat back, momentarily impeded. "Oh. Well that's nice. But she didn't say it to you, did she? Why do you suppose that is?"

"Because Seven's the one who questioned my loyalty, when her cortical node malfunctioned." Chakotay gripped the bar with one tense hand. "This is not helping, Paris!" This time his head came up angrily.

"Will you at least agree with me that you've been friend zoned? Because once you acknowledge it, I can tell you how to handle it," Tom said, now pleading with both hands.

"I'm not even sure what 'friend zoned' means! I feel like I'm in the episode where Captain Proton gives his sidekick bad romantic advice," Chakotay answered with a scowl.

Tom pulled back and poured fresh shots. "Okay, listen. The biggest sign – I mean _huge_ – is that you've been after her for what, seven years? And nada. Goose eggs. Have you even gotten a peck out of her?"

Chakotay glared but didn't answer.

"That's what I thought," Tom said. "You must be the most sexually frustrated man in the galaxy. No wonder you looked ready to space Jaffen as he was leaving the ship. Nobody would've blamed you."

"He's not the only one I'd like to space," Chakotay said, but his shoulders suddenly drooped. "So your point is that she doesn't think of me sexually?"

Tom leaned on the bar. "Doesn't think of you sexually _anymore_. I'm sure she did at one point. We all saw it. But I think it all went wrong around the time she got the Dear John letter from her fiancé. To my mind, that was the one point when you had a shot. If you could have convinced her then that the trip home was too long for all these strict Starfleet protocols, and now she was free from Mark, I think you could have gotten in there. My theory, anyway." Tom looked up to survey Chakotay's thoughtful expression. "Don't you think so?"

"It's not the craziest thing I've ever heard out of you," Chakotay answered. "But still, we're such close friends. Best friends. I think she's just waiting for that wormhole that will bring us home, and then we'll have a chance."

Tom shook his head emphatically. "Nope, that's the worst sign of all. If a woman tells you she likes you as a friend, it's not some game she's playing with you. That's the space you occupy in her mind. Friendarooni. You have to take her seriously."

Chakotay pushed away from the bar in exaggerated surrender. "Okay, I give up. I'm friend zoned. What's the cure, Captain Proton?"

Tom rose, straightened his unzipped uniform jacket, and delivered his prescription with a sweeping gesture: "You have to cut her off."

Chakotay blinked. "How exactly is that going to work? I'm on duty next to her every single day."

"I mean personally. You have to move on completely. Date other women openly. Let her see it. It's your only chance to put this behind you."

"What if I don't want to put it behind me?" Chakotay objected.

Tom jumped back onto his bar stool. "Not an option. If your heart isn't in it, she'll smell it, and you'll just look more pathetic. Nope, you have to make up your mind that as of this moment, Amal Kotay is back on the market. Let the ladies beware! Show them some swagger!"

Chakotay chuckled. "That's absurd. How am I supposed to forget about her when she's right beside me?"

Tom crossed his arms and looked Chakotay up and down. "Maybe by pursuing someone who's nearby almost as often. What about Seven of Nine?"

A coughing fit seized Chakotay. "_Seven of Nine?_ Are you insane? She's almost young enough to be my daughter! I'd be the laughing stock of the ship!"

Tom tilted his head to one side. "I don't think so. I think every man on board from Harry down to the lowest ranking crewman on the lowest deck would look at you like you'd just grown a few inches. I mean yeah, she's Borg, but look at her." He gave a long, low whistle.

"You really think so?" Chakotay stared back at Tom. "I've never thought of her that way at all. She's so stiff and … sterile. I can't even imagine putting my hands on that metal suit she wears. Whereas with Kathryn …"

"Whoa there," Tom interceded with a hand on Chakotay's chest. "Hearing your fantasies about the captain would be just a little too much like hearing my dad's fantasies about my mom. I beg you, keep that to yourself."

Chakotay's mouth fell open. "You don't want to hear how I feel about the captain, but it's okay to pimp me out to Seven? You are in fine form tonight, Tom. I need to get back to my quarters and get some sleep." He slid off the stool, clapped the younger man on the shoulder, and made for the door.

Tom poured himself one last shot as he shouted at Chakotay's departing back, "Just think about what I said! You know I'm right!" He sipped at the amber liquid as he perused Sandrine's collection of bottles behind the bar.

"That ought to liven things up a little around here," he said to himself, and threw back the rest.

END


	2. Chapter 2

Friend Zoned 2

"You can't avoid me forever, Paris."

Tom kept a poker face on the far side of the hearing room when the message flashed up from Chakotay. His eyes scanned the panel of admirals before them, then Captain Janeway's back ahead and to his right, where she faced their interrogators from a table immediately in front of the raised dais. It had been less than a week since Seven turned to Chakotay in the middle of a small homecoming reception for the Voyager senior staff and the Pathfinder staff and said, "Commander, I wish to end our dating activities. I believe we both have better options to explore now that we are back on Earth." Her words had clanged like a badly tuned gong in a spontaneous break in conversation.

Everyone in the room had turned to stare at the two of them, except for Tom Paris, who watched the captain. She had been in a serious conversation with Admiral Paris, leaning in to speak to him under the noise of conversation in the room. Tom had watched as she slowly came around toward Seven and Chakotay, head turning first, then her body gradually aligning so that she stood facing them, waiting with the others for Chakotay to respond. He saw how white her fingers grew against the glass she held, the small twitch along her jawline, and the way her eyes focused a little to the side of the main event, not quite looking at Chakotay or Seven.

Chakotay had stood rooted to the spot for a few long seconds, speechless as the entire party waited for him to say something. Finally he said in a voice that they all strained to hear, "If that's how you feel, Seven, that's fine." He made a beeline for the door, clunking his half full wine glass onto a convenient monitor as he went. Seven had turned to the doctor and asked him what new databases he had accessed since they last conversed. The others went back to their conversations. Nobody but Tom seemed to notice how Janeway bolted the rest of her wine before turning back to the admiral. A few short words had tattooed themselves over and over across the inside of his head: _Chakotay's going to kill me. Chakotay's going to kill me._ If a life debt had ever really existed after he saved Chakotay on the Ocampa home planet, surely Tom had exhausted that chit long ago.

Now, trapped in the hearing room with the cursor under Chakotay's message blinking on his PADD, Paris tapped out a reply with one hand:

"Not avoiding you. Debriefing 12 hours a day, up with baby all night. How are you?" He leaned forward to see all the way down the row and across the aisle to where Chakotay sat behind Janeway, in almost the same position he'd held on the bridge all those years, only now they were both seated and separated by a metal rail between the spectators and the witness table.

"Did you consult with your senior staff on the decision to turn over Federation holo-technology to the Hirogen?" some over-upholstered admiral was droning. Tom caught Chakotay's eye and did a little eyeroll toward the admiral, trying to draw a smile. Chakotay glared and sat back so that Tom couldn't see his face.

Tom glanced down at the PADD tucked half under his thigh on the hard bench and saw Chakotay's reply light up the screen: "Do you know what Kathryn said to me?"

Tom leaned forward, caught Chakotay's eye, and gave his head a shake he hoped would be too small to catch anyone else's attention.

In a moment, the screen read: "She said she had hoped things might be different when we got home, but that ship has obviously sailed."

Tom lowered his hand to the PADD and managed to reply almost without taking his eyes off the lecturing admiral. Janeway was nodding and making appeasing gestures.

"Of course I consulted my senior staff and took their advice into consideration, but the decision was entirely my own. I take full responsibility." As she spoke, Chakotay leaned toward her and grasped the rail, red in the face with the effort of keeping silent.

Tom sent over his message. "I'm sure if you talk to her, you can work it out."

A loud growling, coughing sound, like a bear choking on a small rodent, erupted from the other end of the row. The proceedings halted for a moment as Janeway turned around to see what was happening. She poured water from the small jug at her table, jumped from her chair, and carried the water to Chakotay. As he sipped, her hand settled between his shoulders, gently patting. At last he quieted. Their eyes met and held for a second before she stepped back to the table. The questions resumed.

A moment later, Tom's PADD registered a new message. "I WAS NOT friend zoned, you moron. She thought we still had a chance and I BLEW IT, thanks to you."

Tom's eyebrows shot up. He craned his neck to look for Seven and quickly spotted her two rows back, tapping at her own PADD, oblivious to the proceedings. His hand shot to his PADD.

"Have you told her how you feel?" He let the message fly and waited, fingers tensed around the PADD.

Finally the words appeared. "How can I after she watched Seven dump me?" Chakotay shot back. "I look like an idiot to her – and everyone else." When Tom leaned out this time, Chakotay was slumped in his seat, chin nearly at his chest, one hand covering the screen of his PADD.

Tom considered and tapped out his message letter by letter, trying to block the screen from B'Elanna's curious eyes. "Maybe I could talk to her."

"Don't you dare," came the reply. Then, a few seconds later, "Stay the hell away from both of us." Tom watched, but the screen stayed blank after that.

The afternoon wore on. Occasionally the panel would call up another member of Voyager's crew to testify, but mostly it was Janeway front and center, next to her uniformed legal counsel. This was not a court martial, but it seemed to be only a step away from a disciplinary proceeding.

When at last everyone rose, the panel exited, and Janeway's lawyer led her into a side room to confer, B'Elanna grabbed Tom by the elbow and hissed into his ear: "You're going to tell me what's going on with Chakotay. _Now_. Come on." She led her husband straight through the crowd of Starfleet personnel wandering out of the building, blinking and stretching, into the early evening light. Their nanny sat on a bench near the doors, Miral asleep in her arms. B'Elanna picked up the baby and turned on Tom. "Okay. Let's hear it."

"It's nothing, Bé," he assured her. "Just a dumb conversation we had weeks ago. He's blaming me for something he did himself."

B'Elanna lowered her chin and narrowed her eyes as she glared. She began to nod as she said, "This has to do with Seven, doesn't it?"

He tried to make his face blank and innocent.

"Don't give me that look, flyboy," she snapped. "It's written all over you. That little … _episode_ with Seven and Chakotay, you set that up, didn't you?" When he didn't answer, she continued as if he'd said yes. "And now Seven's dumped him, the captain's embarrassed and furious and will never go near him again, and we have to fix it. Is that about it?" She lowered her voice as a few heads began to turn toward them, but her intensity only increased as she concluded. "Is it?" she demanded.

Tom nodded in resignation. "Pretty much. But listen, B'Elanna – you've got to know, I had good intentions. I figured the captain had friend zoned him and he needed to move on. I was trying to help."

B'Elanna shut her eyes and sighed as Miral began to stir in her arms. She opened her eyes. "Friend zoned?" She shook her head. "If I had a Vulcan life span, I would never live to understand men. And you would never understand women. She was doing her _duty_, Tom. I – no, never mind, I need to get back to our quarters and nurse Miral. Chakotay's right over there. Go talk to him." At Tom's protest, she added: "Whatever he does or says, remember that you deserve it." She gestured to the nanny, and they took off toward the residential towers at a quick walk.

Chakotay had left the walk and crossed the xeriscaped rock face to an overlook that offered a view of the bay and the Marin headlands in the distance. As the rest of the crowd dispersed toward restaurants and personal quarters, Tom steeled himself to approach his former first officer. He came even with Chakotay, but the older man did not acknowledge him. They stood together for several minutes, watching rough water lap at the bridge supports below.

"I owe you an apology," Tom said at last.

Chakotay looked down at his hands, folded in front of him. "Little late for that," he said.

At this non-violent response, Tom grew bolder. He turned toward Chakotay. "You've got to let me explain to her. Once she knows it was all another one of my stupid ideas, she'll" – but he didn't get to finish.

"No," Chakotay said, deep and loud. "It might've been your idea, but I did it. I gave up on us, and she knows it." He swallowed. "She even knows that in Admiral Janeway's timeline, I married Seven."

"_What?_" Tom cried. Chakotay didn't respond to the outburst.

"So you see, what you did was insignificant compared to what I did."

Tom scoffed. "But you never did it! You can't be held responsible for another timeline! That's – wait. Just wait here." Out of the corner of his eye, he had spotted Janeway exiting the building, no longer escorted by her over-large lawyer. Chakotay tried to grab his arm but he twisted away and ran toward her.

"Tom!" She stopped and turned to him with a tired smile. "What are you doing lingering around here? Shouldn't you be with B'Elanna and Miral?"

He saw the moment when she spotted Chakotay over his shoulder. Her face went still and a little sad, then regrouped almost instantly. He glanced back, but Chakotay had not followed. He was still at the overlook, staring out to sea.

"Captain, I had to talk to you," Tom said, breathing a little hard from his run.

She folded her arms. "I'm listening."

"This thing with Chakotay and Seven, it wasn't even their idea," he said. Her jaw tightened, but she stayed still. He ran a hand through his hair. "It was my idea. I was drinking with Chakotay, not long after we got back from Quarra, late one night at Sandrine's."

One of her eyebrows rose. Tom brought his hands together.

"It hurt him, what went on down there. You and Jaffen."

Now her eyes dropped. "He never said anything," she answered. "But I had a feeling."

Tom nodded. "And you couldn't say anything, because you were the captain. But I had this theory – I know this will sound stupid now, but I meant well – I had this theory that you just thought of him as a friend, a brother. I told him he needed to move on and find someone else. I was the one who suggested Seven. He laughed when I told him."

Janeway's eyes flashed at him, looking for a lie. He held his eyes steady to hers, showing his sincerity. "Seriously, Captain. He wasn't interested. He started trying to tell me how he felt about you and I didn't want to hear it. Please." He glanced behind him toward Chakotay's immobile, uniformed back, framed against the sea and sky. When he looked back, Janeway had lowered her head so that he couldn't see her face. "Don't punish him for my being an idiot. I think he would have waited for you forever, but I made him think there was nothing to wait for."

Without raising her head, Janeway said in a low voice, full of emotion: "Go home to your wife and child, Lieutenant."

The order and the tone of command were so familiar that his feet obeyed before his mind had time to consider. He was halfway to the nearest residence tower when he regained enough presence of mind to look back. Janeway had not moved. She was in the middle of the walk where he had left her. But Chakotay had turned around and stood facing her from the overlook, at the far end of a winding path lined by rocks and native grasses. Tom stopped where a tall manzanita bush partially hid him.

Janeway and Chakotay stood still for so long that Tom began to wonder if they would eventually just walk away without talking. He almost missed the slight twitch of Janeway's right hand, but Chakotay reacted as if a gun had sounded. He startled and began to move toward her at a quick pace, first winding along the path plotted between them, but soon abandoning it to hurdle over boulders and around stands of prickly grasses until he shuddered to a stop right in front of her, so close they were almost touching.

She put her head back and looked right into his face. Something passed between them wordlessly, so subtle that Tom couldn't see, in the instant before Chakotay snatched her into his arms and pulled her face up to his. Even from his partial view position, Tom could plainly see that this was one of the great kisses, the sort of embrace that troubadours and poets had tried and failed since the beginning of history to get just right in their overwrought love stories. In spite of the setting and the characters, this was no cinematic sunset fade-away. It was something real and lasting, and he had made it happen. He straightened in his hiding place behind the hedge and let a smug smile take over his face completely.

Tom was still enjoying this moment of triumph when Chakotay lifted his head, looked straight at him over the top of the bush and said, "I'm not finished with you, Paris."

END


End file.
